Öoo (2025)

caterpillar wants to eat apple but, oh no, bird ate caterpillar first! whole game takes place inside bird's anatomy. (bird has swallowed some weird-ass stuff.) at first, caterpillar is just a head. then caterpillar finds the apple, which gives it an extra segment. extra segment is a remote bomb! later finds another apple, grows another segment: caterpillar is now a head and two remote bombs! caterpillar cannot jump, but can stand on a segment and blow it up to approximate a jump; ditto blowing a segment midair to simulate a double jump or air-dodge (depending on cardinal locality of the bomb-segment).

is metroid-adjacent, drawing from the principles of metroid(vain/brain)ia, but actually, you know, entirely linear? the map is laid out like a metroid map but you cannot leave an area until you have solved it. whole thing is a series of loops: you enter an area, a sequence of rooms with a unique color and tileset and puzzle gimmick; at some point in the area, there will be a fork; you can only go one way; sequence of puzzles in that direction will eventually teach you everything you need to know to go down the other fork. repeat for 8ish areas.

the final challenge is the entire game in... the opposite of miniature, macroture??? getting back to the bird's mouth to exit involves treating the entire game like one big loop, making your way back with everything you've learned. the symmetry is frankly exquisite.

ok but: this is a game with a 75% completion rate on steam. I don't think I've ever seen one that high, especially not for a puzzle game. so, as clever as the game makes you feel, the tutorials are so clear that you are never really stumped by anything. difficulty curve is smooth as river stones. you marvel at the nonverbal tutorializing, but you are tutorialized. but there's some post-game stuff that is wicked brain-twisty, I am actually stumped on several parts! so, in the end, it's got goodies even for the puzzle-freaks.

still, ultimately, feel like I am marveling at the designers' cleverness more than I get to be clever, but, eyyy, who actually gives a shit? this is charming and beautifully-designed.

two contrasting thoughts here are that this game is very fun and the puzzles are extremely delightful but also i think the metroidvania angle does not feel particularly great here because the time between puzzles can feel a bit unbalanced and the final runaround portion of the game feels a bit more tedious than thrilling.

i'm not sure what the right way of approaching this is, because i think when the game is at its best, it manages to produce extremely tight puzzles that occupy a screen or two, but traversing between those screens, by necessity of satisfying the rules of "map", is often a bit tedious. the result is that the rhythm of the game, even when you're playing at a high level, is often interrupted by somewhat slow traversal and even the warp points feel a bit more sluggish than they need to. probably my least favorite of the game's early-ish mechanics is the reliance on blasting a wall to reveal a new path. for a game that is at its best when you're puzzling or executing tight "bomb platforming," looking at a wall and saying "probably gotta blow that up" ends up feeling more like a groan than a delight. instead, what öoo does really well is tease out the all the ways to solve a puzzle given the tools at your disposal and once you have them all, the final puzzles can only partially deliver on that knowledge and those tactics are always in tension with the metroid-parts.

to be clear, these are extremely nit-picky complaints on a game that is already quite tight, but i think there'd be something to be gained by rethinking some of these points and instead focusing on how the moment to moment of the game feels. where my review of elechead was basically "this is great, it would be great if it were 80% tighter," öoo is basically that! it's great! but i am once again asking: what if this game itself were just a little bit tighter?? i love what it's offering, but i don't think the execution is as tight as it could be, and i think the reliance on the metroid structure of "logical cartography" and "necessary but hidden pathways" and "backtracking" sort of hurt what could be a really delightful, more pure-puzzle experience.

I really enjoyed Nama Takahashi's previous game, ElecHead. But I am head over heels for Öoo.

The style, minimalism and clever remixing of straightforward mechanics are still present and accounted for. But the game's intermittent map and use of backtracking (without collectibles or optional pathing) make for an even tighter and more focused experience, where most unlocks occur in your own mind. I felt that satisfying "a-ha!" moment again and again as I crawled and exploded my way through this quirky and colorful microbiome, never once reaching for a walkthrough along the way.

My low rating is ONLY because of my taste. It’s an extremely well made and clever game, but it’s just not my kind of thing. It is an interesting and unique blend of a brainvania (like tunic, outer worlds, fez) with a pure puzzle platformer.

You play as a little bubble creature that only has a bomb place and bomb explode controls- no jump, no attack, no dash. The game basically has you go through a section of puzzles, and it cleverly teaches you a new way to use the bomb. So the end of the passage is simple a warp point, no new ability or item. But, now you have new knowledge that will allow you get through another section earlier.

This design is pretty clever, and the game overall plays very smooth. It has nearly 100% positive reviews, so I’m definitely in the minority. But if this sounds at all up your alley’s it’s worth checking out.